I wanted to write a post about my experience as the Contract Negotiator and union representative for the library workers at my library. However, I don’t really want to go into specifics – especially as these are ongoing. I wanted to write a post about this to give a perspective to others on libraries and local politics, aspects of representing fellow workers and public sentiment/national politics and public libraries. However, this experience has been one of the most potent of my time as a professional librarian and in my current position (almost 5 years). Unfortunately, it has been one of the most decidedly negative, draining and confidence crushing experiences of my professional and personal life. So in other words, this post is starting out very positive! In fact, it might be a good idea to play Sunshine, Lollypops and Rainbows while reading this post 🙂
Let’s go back to the beginning here so you can get a better idea of my experience. I have been the union representative for the library workers for roughly 3 years now. At the time the library had recently split off from being part of the City government and thus became an independent public entity. The library workers were part of a local municipal union. However, as their employer technically changed (City —> Library Board), they now needed to form a new union. This new union was worked out to be a sub-set of the larger local municipal union, who would have their own contract. As the library was splitting off the larger union informed us that we would need to elect a representative to start taking things over in this capacity. This is where I (foolishly) stepped in.
I initially started as union representative because I thought that this was an important thing for the library to undertake. Further, no other worker was really stepping up and showing an interest in this role. At the same time there were a lot of issues that had been festering that needed the attention of a union or worker representative to start addressing. Finally, I thought it might be a good thing for my professional career and gain helpful experience in regard to leadership, local politics, contracts, etc. All of these reasons were why I stepped into this position. It is important to note, though, that at the beginning I did not believe that I would be assuming a union ‘presidency’ type role, but rather simply a shop steward for the library worker portion of the larger union.
Now from here out there are far too many details to go into. However, I want to touch on some major points as I think they are important to understanding how I believe this experience has actually been detrimental to my professional experience. At first I held meetings with the larger union representation and the legal representative team for the union. It was at these initial meetings that I learned that my position would not be shop steward, but rather rather a presidency type role where I would be responsible for forming the new sub-union, addressing all complaints and grievances, and negotiating a new contract with the library board. So, coming to terms with my new found workload I spent the first year trying to figure out what the structure of the union would look like, address some important staff complaints that had been waiting for years, and fix some basic paperwork issues related to the union.
My experience, background and work as a librarian brought me to approach this new work with the tools I know about: research, number crunching, and drafting logical arguments to solutions. Therefore, this is what I did and have been doing for my time as union representative. On a variety of issues and problems that have come up, I have probably a good 100+ pages of reports, memos and other documents. However, not too long after I began work in this capacity I realized just how little power our union has and what even smaller portion of power I have as union representative. First, as the previous contract had expired some time ago and as we had changed employers, our ability to challenge current work related issues was dubious. This was extremely problematic when facing a mountain of issues that needed some honest solutions, but essentially I was now impotent to do anything about any of the issues. Understandably, this was frustrating to the workers and issues remained unresolved. This was painful strike one.
The library board sought to begin contracts roughly 2 years ago, at first moving slowly. At this point I’ll remind you I can’t go into details, but I feel this is perhaps the most important part of the experience. First, these negotiations demonstrated to me that my ‘librarian-style’ methods of good research and sound arguments would not be enough (or perhaps not factor at all) during the negotiations. I put a compelling 17 page report detailing worker achievements, production levels, pay levels, cost of living, etc, etc. to no effect at all.
Since they began and especially after having ramping up in frequency, I have worried in a near constant state about the outcome of these negotiations, with most of the responsibility falling on my shoulders. I have put a negotiating team of several staff members and we have a lawyer representing us, but the heavy lifting of drafting proposals, making the negotiations, organizing and holding union meetings and doing research falls almost solely on me. Worse was that in this process as well I came up against an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Both the union and myself seemed powerless to make any positive progress, and certainly my librarian instinct for organization and logical reports had a near non-existent effect. This transferred itself into an acute guilt and sense of failed leadership that I felt both in my responsibility to the union and to myself and a person. In other words, this did not have a rosy effect on my professional confidence.
Paralleling my experiences was a national debate on the role and future of unions, with flashpoints of this debate occurring in Wisconsin and Ohio in recent years and “Right to Work” legislation being pushed forward. I find this somewhat odd considering that as of 2012 only 11.3% of workers are unionized in America, with 6.6% of the private sector and 36% of the public sector being unionized. Somehow, 11.3% of the population was supposedly holding hostage the rest of the country, and certainly all taxpayers (minus the ones who are in unions of course). Public budgets have been slashed repeatedly over the past 5 years and an aggressive anti-union campaign being undertaken by right leaning interest groups and representatives. This national debate and anti-union and anti-public worker (lazy, wasting tax dollars, too much job security, etc.) has certainly played no small part in the proceedings in which I’ve had this experience.
In the end my principals still hold the same: I enjoy my work and believe in the public sector and public libraries to do common good in communities and nationally. I also believe in the importance of unions and the need counter-balance the power of private ownership and administrative power. However, the reality of my experiences has put the most negative possible face to local politics. Moreover, this experience has shown me what is it to struggle in a powerless situation and the effect that has on a person’s confidence. I have felt that while I have done my best and put countless hours of work into this effort, I have very little, if not nothing, to show for it. As such, I feel that having engaged in this endeavor has actually hurt me professionally: in the time I spent working on this I could have been – 1) learning new technical skills 2) writing articles and speaking at conferences 3) participating in professional organizations 4) acquiring other professional skills, etc. Anything I’ve learned in the way of navigating local politics has been negated by the time lost to powerless endeavors that bore no fruit. I’m looking forward to focusing on professional development, building skills and participating in professional organizations in the future.
How about you, reader? Any experiences of a similar nature? Have you come up against currently seemingly negative sentiment toward unions and public workers?Post your thoughts!
P.S. – Here is a funny picture to bring your back up from that post 🙂
beratedlibrarian 